On Thursday, November 5, at 10:30 am EST, Vice President Joe Biden, who chairs the White House Task Force on Middle Class Families, will host a panel discussion about the challenges facing America’s middle class in the 21st century economy. The event will be co-hosted by the Center for American Progress (CAP) and the Economic Policy Institute (EPI) and EPI President Lawrence Mishel will participate on the panel.

This discussion is not open to the public but can be accessed via streaming video via the White House Web site.

The discussion will focus on the many economic developments and trends affecting middle-class families, including changes to the overall labor market in recent decades, shifting gender roles, the need for work-life balance, economic inequality and mobility, and the increased gap between productivity and wages. In addition to Joe Biden and Lawrence Mishel, panelists will include:

–Melody Barnes, White House Director of the Domestic Policy Council
–Heather Boushey, Senior Economist, Center for American Progress
–Jim Kessler, Vice President for Policy, Third Way
–Isabel Sawhill, Senior Fellow on Economic Studies, Brookings Institution
–Ralph Whitehead, Professor of Journalism, University of Massachusetts at Amherst

For more information about watching the live video of the event, visit the White House’s Middle Class Task Force Web site at: